Iâ€™ve been secretly hiding something and I need to confess. Iâ€™m in love with Arnab Goswami. Not the individual. I donâ€™t know anything about the individual. It is rumored he gets his hair gelled in my neighborhood at a salon where cinema star Salman Khan waxes, but thatâ€™s only a rumor, and like Arnab, I donâ€™t dabble in rumors. I seek the truth, I am a truth-seeker like him, the John Rambo of the Indian news anchors. So the truth is, I am talking about the thing thatâ€™s on TV, the character, the persona that shouts in my face everyday with the familiar, consoling, necessary words, â€œINDIAAAAâ€¦â€

Now itâ€™s true that if you are weak, if you muddle through your middle-class life, you may get scared listening to the Newshour on Times Now when he starts shouting. Your child may start crying, you may drop your coffee, or an aging person in the house may have a heart attack and die, but thatâ€™s because you are weak. You donâ€™t have the mental and physical strength to listen to the dayâ€™s news. You donâ€™t understand that anyone can read the news, but how many can feel the news? Tear the news? Break the news? Blow the news? Be blown by the news? Indeed, Iâ€™d go further and ask, how many can just say the word news in so many different ways so you think itâ€™s not news â€“ but your house burning down? Thatâ€™s right, the answer is two words (or one word hyphenated) â€“ no one.

Unlike weak people, Arnab and I are men of the world. We have strength. We have foresight. But there is one difference between us, I have hair loss and he has a lapel microphone. And into that lapel microphone, more than any other Indian, he knows what to do. To say, â€œNo! No! No! No!â€ just when one of his guests begins to speak. Thatâ€™s genius. Thatâ€™s why heâ€™s where he is (in a suit in Lower Parel) and the rest of us are where we are (elsewhere). Heâ€™s figured out the crucial Indian trait that many have forgotten â€“ to deny things even before anything is said. To reject their argument way before an argument. Timed to perfection, like a Tiger Woods-infidelity. Right after â€œArnab I think-â€ and boom. There. Every night. Come the tsunami of nos. Never a second late, like a master craftsman. Itâ€™s like watching Michelangelo.

Any Indian who grew up in 80â€™s Socialist India, filled with income tax raids, knows this. Always start with, â€œIâ€™m innocentâ€ even if the question is, â€œWhatâ€™s your name?â€ Thatâ€™s probably his inspiration, but as a cowardly fan Iâ€™ll never have the courage to go up and ask.

Many have forgotten that India. He hasnâ€™t. He knows that India. And this India. All Indias. India knows him. In fact, he is India. When he says, â€œMy millions of Indian viewersâ€ or â€œMy Indiansâ€ or â€œYou, Indiaâ€ building to his opus â€œINDIAAAâ€, I need a drink of water to calm down from the erotically-charged ambience it creates. Iâ€™m ashamed that millions of Indians will prostrate before this or that Guru or Rajnikanth, but not before their TVs when heâ€™s on. That they will calmly eat a home-cooked dinner (or dare to change to a sports channel) while he toils and fights every night to create a nation-shaking opinion revolution (thatâ€™s what I call it, you can call it â€œnewsâ€, you weakling).
Itâ€™s ungrateful. Unfair. But anyone whoâ€™s understood the workings of the world, or has watched the Oscars (Arnab has done both, simultaneously), knows that we live in an unfair, ungrateful planet. Whereâ€™s his Dadasaheb Phalke? His Nobel? His Rajya Sabha bungalow? His bid for Indiaâ€™s President? Another two words â€“ not there.

Itâ€™s sad. But messiahs are never understood in their time. God, Mithun Chakravarty, the guy that invented the zipper â€“ were all considered mortals. It takes a while for it to sink in to these ordinary people, the dead-weight who allow themselves to be clouded by dumb things like â€œreasonâ€ and â€œeducationâ€. Maybe someone someday will understand. Maybe Dadasaheb Phalke will receive the Arnab Goswami award, when thereâ€™s justice. As a start, I humbly beg the powers that be to do a version of â€œMera Bharat Mahaanâ€, that old Doordarshan patriotic theme song, and replace it with â€œMera Bharat Yahaanâ€, sung my him. Yahaan being his Newshour studio. Naturally.
Thatâ€™ll be a start.

I hear Mr Aamir Khan is doing some show about the victory of truth on Sunday mornings. A great effort, but useless. Too late. The truth wins every night in India. Thatâ€™s right. On Mr Goswamiâ€™s show. Thatâ€™s where Satyamev comes to do his Jayate and hang out. By the way, in case youâ€™re not sure if the truth won some night, wait for him to say,â€œThe truth winsâ€ followed by, â€œThe truth has wonâ€ every 4 seconds between the Nos. Heâ€™s not a show-off, he doesnâ€™t want to give away the score, he just wants to subtly hint at it. Thatâ€™s what I call, in a word, class. Look up what it means in a dictionary. It means him.

Yes, Mr Goswami has critics. He has those that say he is opinionated without knowing facts, that itâ€™s only a series of pointless accusations without perspective, that the flashing headline has already decided the debate, that people shout at each other and over each other so you canâ€™t listen and thereâ€™s no debate, that mature journalism is about objectivity, about the greyness between black and white, itâ€™s about two sides of every issue, that he doesnâ€™t listen to anyone he invites. To those people, my thoughtful intelligent retort is â€“ whatever. If you donâ€™t like it, we have airports â€“ leave. You are mass. He is class. Youâ€™ll never understand. Itâ€™s like going into Rahul Dravidâ€™s wardrobe â€“ classy. Donâ€™t go there if youâ€™re not invited. Go away.

Look, any pansy can look up â€œfactsâ€ and â€œlistenâ€. Especially if you have Google and headphones. Any idiot can have an informed debate where they knowledgably navigate an issue while lacing their point of view. Whatâ€™s the big deal in that? An emcee does that. Any child can call people on a TV show and be gracious to give them an opportunity to speak. Reality shows do that, and then give away money to the public for speaking (fools). The real talent is challenging the guests with,â€œWell sir, I have a piece of paper that saysâ€¦â€ and then holding up a random piece of paper. Doesnâ€™t matter if it is an empty piece of paper. Only Arnab can do that. Any journalist can sit and explore both sides of an issue with participants. Itâ€™s just lazy listening, no maturity required. How many can make up their mind about whatâ€™s right and wrong about an issue even before the issue has happened? Only him. It shows that he knows something will happen and knows how he morally feels about it weeks in advance. What happens in the studio later is merely the playing out of how he feels. He isnâ€™t reporting the news, heâ€™s foreseeing it. How long before he stops tragedies from happening? Coming soon, is what Iâ€™m saying. Batman, buck up man. And Arnab doesnâ€™t even have an Arnab-mobile (I hope someone from Audi is reading this).

So to him, who is just like Alexander (only greater), Caesar (only more powerful), and Muhammad Ali (only stronger), I will say â€“ ignore your â€œcriticsâ€ (whatever that word means) and keep doing what youâ€™re doing Sir, because if you are holding up a piece of paper to show India things, I, your viewer, am holding up a piece of paper in return. And mine says, â€œI love youâ€.

What these fools (read: regular humans) donâ€™t realise is that long after they are gone and the world has ended in floods and earthquakes and your critics and other â€œjournalistsâ€ have turned into mud, and all that inhabits the earth are microbes, youâ€™d still be there, every night, sitting in your suit, shouting, â€œIndiaaaaâ€, forever, into eternity.

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Anuvab Pal is a playwright, screenwriter, stand up comic and novelist, which is a really fancy way of saying his real ambition is doing nothing. Being Bengali helps.

It was Rahul babaâ€™s day out today. And he was trooped out in his Thursday best to address the annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry. His first public speech at a major business event â€“ and what a killer speech it was.

Dimpled, clean shaven, togged out in a white kurta pajama. Thank god he at least has his good looks. Because oration is obviously not his key skill set. I have to say I had full faith that Rahulâ€™s Yoda and Jabba The Hutt a.k.a.Raghuram Rajan and Sibal would have burnt the midnight oil writing out the bestest speech ever for the little prince. And tutored him to be able to answer every question. But Rahul showed us that he writes his own speeches. And somewhere deep within Rashtrapati Bhawan we heard a deep chuckle.

So what did we learn about Rahul Gandhi from his speech today.

His role model is Noah.To paraphrase, he is building a boat for people in his constituency. We are assuming it will be called Rahulâ€™s Ark. The boat will catch the tide weâ€™ve been told. To quote, â€œA rising tide raises all boats, but you need a boat to rise with the tide, what does he who does not have a boat doâ€.

Main aur Montek. That Rahul loves Montek was made obvious by the fact that he took Montekâ€™s name, not once, not twice â€“ but five times at last count.
His other role model is Mother Teresa. After all, as Rahul said â€“ â€œI am somebody who spends a lot of time with poor peopleâ€.

He likes meeting the common man. And he knows just how to speak to them. â€œSo I went to a jhuggi jhopri and there was a woman there. So I said, â€˜whatâ€™s happening? Whatâ€™s going on?â€™ She was 25 and had two kids. One of the kids wanted to be an IAS officer. I looked at the mother and told her, â€˜Itâ€™s not happeningâ€™.â€ After which we are assuming the mother voted for the BJP.

He also showed that heâ€™s not just a hands-on politician, heâ€™s also a handsy one. When elaborating the difference between China and India, Rahul related a story about when he went to China and the Chinese Prime Ministerâ€™s secretary walked up to him and told him that China was more powerful than India. He then held the hand of an unsuspecting man â€“ who happened to be on the stage â€“ to show Chinaâ€™s power. And then placed his arm around the shoulders of the man to show Indiaâ€™s way of displaying its power. As he said, â€œBoss, our environment is not simple, we cannot give you simple answersâ€.

If heâ€™s not mixing with the â€œpoorâ€, heâ€™s travelling to foreign locales to meet foreign friends who then feature in his analogies. From China to Spain to the land of milk and honey, his analogies were peppered with references to â€œwhen I was in Spainâ€¦Franceâ€¦Timbuktuâ€¦â€. Guess whoâ€™s not getting the middle class vote.
And finally, the Rahul lexicon â€“ includes â€œBoss, Montek, poor, boat, system, pilot, beehive, USâ€.

But donâ€™t go by what we said and thought. We spoke to some politico watchers and expert analysts and got their views on Rahulâ€™s speech. Hereâ€™s what they had to say:
Bhupendra Chaubey, CNN IBN National Bureau Chief â€“ High on intention, low on practicality. High on words, low on implementation.

Mihir Sharma, Business Standard â€“ Heâ€™s not a good speechmaker. Heâ€™s improved a little but he still has only one thing to say â€“ which is about giving voice to people and decentralisation.

Hartosh Bal, Political Editor Open -Itâ€™s a managerâ€™s speech not that of a politician or a statesman. It deals in managerial specifics and doesnâ€™t show a political vision. It leaves me distinctly unimpressed.

IndrajitHazra, Journalist â€“ Watching a clean-shaven Rahul addressing the CII was seeing him tackle â€œnon-Real Indiaâ€ for a change. He patted India Inc. on its back for having â€œchangedâ€ India before going on to tell them what they wanted to hear: more private sector participation is needed for infrastructure development. He essentially made the pitch that his party (as opposed to the UPA government) is not only obsessed about schemes like NREGA but is also interested in old-style capital and wealth creation. His comment about â€œone personâ€ â€” I wonder who? â€” not being able to change the system but power has to be given to Indiaâ€™s â€œbillionâ€ to solve problems made me smile considering that such clarity could begin at home within the party heâ€™s vice-president of. I had the distinct feeling that Rahul was trying to make this his version of Swami Vivekanandaâ€™s Chicago speech. It was certainly as mystical.

Sanjay Jha, Founder Hamara Congress website (whose caller tune is a clear give-away of his feelings about Rahulâ€™s speech -â€œNa meinsamjha, namein ye jaana, jobhitumne ye kahahai senoritaâ€)â€“ An honest speech,a visionary and a powerful speech. He was very statesmanlike and his ideas of inclusive growth was based on his personal travels. Liked the point on how the government and corporate sector needs to work together. His speech combined positive elements.

Manu Joseph, Editor Open â€“ As an orator, Rahul Gandhi is as boring as Modi and evidently less talented, but I thought Rahul was impressive during the question-and-answer session. I can say without any ambiguity, even though it is naive for a journalist to say this, I believe that Rahul means every word he utters. It is a rare endearing quality in an Indian politician. I donâ€™t know why he reminds me of Aamir Khan, but he does. The intense,decent bore, perhaps.

Sreenivasan Jain, Managing Editor NDTV - Fairly unimpressive.Not expected from someone embedded in the system. Itâ€™s a trend with Rahul. He projects himself with not being a part of the system and thatâ€™s not convincing at all.

All we can say is that this made for the most riveting hour of news television in a long while.

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Rajyasree Sen used to run the restaurant Brown Sahib in New Delhi and is a foodie. Much of her time is devoted to writing on pop culture and TV. She also maintains a blog foodforthoughtindia. blogspot.com, where you can order some delicious food from her catering outfit. And we canâ€™t believe weâ€™re plugging her catering business on a news site. Who approved this copy?

Fairness is the first casualty when people talk about someone who is cocky, intelligent, talented and somehow important (not necessarily in that order). There is something about a VS Naipaul or a Mani Shankar Aiyar that can shatter the illusions of being thick-skinned which journalists have about themselves.When speaking their minds, both can lash out at big shots (and for that matter, anyone) with the same acidic tongue which editorial bosses and senior journalists use while dealing with subordinate staff in their offices. But, the fact is that for different reasons both are significant figures for our engagement with the world of letters and ideas. And that is what should matter if we want to have a measure of their contributions (in varying degrees) to the different shades of discourse in our times.

The irrelevance of some bruised egos and non-literary considerations for evaluating the literary genius of VS Naipaul is something that I had dwelt on in an earlier article. Similarly, the pointlessness of a vicarious sense of hurt or indignation (or foible-centric accounts of diatribes featuring Mani Shankar Aiyar) must not come in the way of understanding and enagaging with Mani as one of the last surviving (and isolated) voices of Nehruvian worldview in a political party which has embraced neo-liberal, market fundamentalism in its policy outlook. First, let us dissect the anatomy of the grouses and even visceral dislike that some people have for him (interestingly, in doing so people reveal more about themselves than about Mani).

Mani doesnâ€™t fit the Indian Mediaâ€™s Definition of a Complete Man

For some reasons which make him an extraordinary public figure, Mani Shankar Aiyar has no pretensions of being humble. Also, he is not a man who can conform to your idea of a good guest mouthing sweet nothings or bleeding-heart outrage. And journalists beware, he doesnâ€™t shy away from rubbing it in if you have not been to Doon, St Stephenâ€™s or Oxford/ Cambridge. In case you have attended any of these institutions (especially in the decades- 50s, 60s and 70s) and are still only a senior journalist, Mani would remind you about your failure in clearing or timidity in not attempting the Civil Services examination (he did well enough in the examination to attain a high rank required for joining the Indian Foreign Service). One may recall that even after attending St Stephenâ€™s, and despite being armed with a D.Phil from Oxford University, Chandan Mitra (Editor, The Pioneer) was at the receiving end of this acerbic comment from Mani in a panel discussion: â€œJournalists are people who either flunked or funked civil services examinationâ€. But, despite his apparent penchant for institutional exclusivities (which some would find closer to snobbery or elitism), Mani has a more egalitarian understanding of his immediate milieu and the cultural context of discourse in the public domain than he is credited with. One may revisit the article he wrote for Outlook(Does it Play in Deoria?, October 5, 2009) in which Mani , with a college senior tone, chided fellow Stephanian , Shashi Tharoor for his rather naÃ¯ve and callous understanding of the world outside St Stephenâ€™s college while peddling humour on Twitter.

Mani Shankar Aiyar is an unsettling public figure, even a misfit, for the journalistic judgments which place an obsessive premium on humility as a virtue. Manu Joseph, perhaps the only Indian journalist (in English media) with a genuine talent for writing, has made this incisive observation about the journalistic â€œsearchâ€ for humility in celebrities which seems apt even about how journalists judge all public figures (even non-celebrities) â€“ â€œNo other nation is as fond of this line: â€˜What strikes you about him is his humilityâ€™. It is a compliment usually given to a celebrity with good manners, who has made a journalist feel comfortable, who has offered him a glass of water to drinkâ€¦And his self-centered caution that ensures he does not always speak his mind, are we misinterpreting that disappointing aspect of his personality for humility? He might be humble, as somehow required by all his devotees, but my point is we donâ€™t knowâ€. On this count, Mani doesnâ€™t disappoint- he often speaks his mind, some offended journalists canâ€™t take it.

Itâ€™s rather interesting to recall that when Mani Shankar Aiyar became an important part of efforts to unearth the Commonwealth Games scam, media houses were more than eager to report his sharply worded barbs against Suresh Kalmadi. When a reporter once asked him about the arguments Kalmadi was making in his defence, Mani retorted: â€œHe is a bloody liarâ€. Television channels gleefully lapped it up, and played it through the evening. Maniâ€™s acerbic words became the flavour of anti-Kalmadi media rhetoric for the evening. Ironically, nobody was complaining about Maniâ€™s sharp tongue.

But, the thing about candour is that it has selective reception. Its acceptability is often decided by a variable- who is at the receiving end. If you arenâ€™t pre-determined about your sympathies in the spat Mani Shankar Aiyar had with journalist Tavleen Singh on NDTV24X7â€™s panel discussion last week, itâ€™ s very difficult to understand how Mani was wrong in what he was saying and how he responded when provoked by being called â€œinsensitiveâ€. As if there were a device to measure the intrinsic moral worth of an argument, Maniâ€™s simple point of reposing faith in the legitimacy of judicial process as a grievance redressal system in a democratic system (as opposed to kangaroo justice) was dismissed as cynical. His retort on being called â€œinsensitive and cynicalâ€centred around calling the journalist â€˜gossipyâ€™ and declaring that he never had any respect for her- both are opinions that Mr Aiyar is as much entitled to have as someone is entitled to judge his sensitivity and cynicism. In fact, what was the only thing worrisome about that panel discussion, and which has almost become a farcical trend in television news shows is this: the swing from â€œdisputableâ€ to â€œincontrovertibleâ€ becomes a matter of minutes, and in the outrage-driven zeal for having a consensus (or unanimity) anyone with a different (or contrarian) view is presented with the farce of a fait accompli- is there anything left to argue? Mani can often sense such farce.

Sorry, Mr Guha. Mani is important for our engagement with Nehruvian worldview. The political class needs his voice, we need to listen.

Speaking on the current crop of political thinkers in India at India Habitat Centre in the capital three years ago, historian Ramachandra Guha made an unprovoked remark : â€œNow donâ€™t tell me that Mani Shankar Aiyar is a political thinker, what thought emerged when he was working in the PMO during Rajiv Gandhâ€™s tenure?â€.Mr Guhaâ€™s jibe was less influenced by historical reasoning and more by what he thought about Maniâ€™s proximity to a former Prime Minister or maybe his personal experiences of some of Maniâ€™s blown-out-of proportion foibles. In fact, the truth is far more interesting than the limits Guha has put on it. Mani might not be original in his contributions to political thought but the fact remains that he stuck to his Nehruvian convictions despite his close association with Rajiv Gandhi (who had sown seeds of economic liberalisation far earlier than we think- in the 80s before it became substantive in the 90s). Mani has never been comfortable with the neo-liberal thrust in economic policy which somehow enjoys a consensus across party lines barring the left.

His critique of the trickle-down model of economic development is distinctly Nehruvian in its point of departure from what his party has been pursuing for more than two decades now. In that sense, he serves as a reference point for left-of-centre discourse in the party. With the moral pomposity of the phrase â€œinclusive growthâ€ increasingly becoming a vacuity in the face of the governmentâ€™s renewed emphasis on market reforms, Mani Shankar Aiyarâ€™s voice may remind us that there are relics of a Socialist compass still tucked in some corner of the party office. The need to reach out to him becomes more important because distinct voices like his are increasingly getting isolated and outshouted by the votaries of market economy.

The Nehruvian imprint on Mani Shankar Aiyarâ€™s foreign policy discourse is evident. His stint in hard nosed diplomacy as an IFS officer didnâ€™t wean him away from his belief in the constituents of edifying moralism with which Nehru shaped the formative years of Indiaâ€™s foreign policy after independence- pacifism, third world solidarity, nuclear disarmament, the continued relevance of NAM(even in a unipolar or multipolar world order), international cooperation for poverty alleviation and creating conditions for an egalitarian world order. In the ways Indiaâ€™s political class sees the world beyond our borders, Mani remains our link to Nehruâ€™s internationalist statesmanship.

And perhaps in a more sustained way, Maniâ€™s relentless articulation of the core Nehruvian understanding of Indiaâ€™s pluralistic society and its multiculturalism is an effective antidote to the polarised discourse of our times. His work, Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist (Penguin, 2005) reflects on the essence and humanism of Indiaâ€™s pursuit of secularism and its pluralistic foundations with remarkable insight and erudition. None other than writer Nayantara Sahgal, Pandit Nehruâ€™s niece, dedicated her book -Jawaharlal Nehru: Civilizing a Savage World (2010) in memory of Jawaharlal Nehru â€“ to â€œMani Shankar Aiyar who speaks the same languageâ€.
Whenever the terms of engagement can go beyond the vacuities of who said what to whom, Mani Shankar Aiyar would be a significant presence for addressing and debating the key political questions confronting the Indian republic. The irrelevance of his idiosyncrasies to an assessment of his place in political discourse of our times needs to be understood. If some people canâ€™t understand that, it tells a thing or two about their approach to their own insecurities and inadequacies. And for Mani, only one piece of unsolicited advice. Next time when someone calls you a cynic, take it as a compliment because as Ousep Chacko, a key character in Manu Josephâ€™s brilliant work The Illicit Happiness of Other People, rightly says â€“ â€œOnly a misanthrope can have clarityâ€.

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Anand Vardhan, an M.A. in Political Science, got his formal education in Bihar and Delhi. He is an explorer of the â€˜absurdâ€™ in vacuous space and time. He writes only by accident as you will find out if you accidentally happen to read his piece. He might accidently be paid someday.